6 series CPU on new Z270 board?

[liiroy]

If you insert Skylake on a new Z270 board are there any feature penalties on the board?

Any loss of PCIe lanes?

 

[mICKEL]

7 series adds nothing but better video decode. Even the higher memory speeds are chipset dependent. The extra PCIe lanes are through the DMI access of the chipset.

vs

It does look like 6xxx are locked to 2133mhz memory on B250.

 

[liiroy]

thanks for the schematics, it does show that with 6 series you get 20 lanes, but 7 series enables 24 lanes....

so you do loose some PCIe lanes

 

[mICKEL]

Notice both 6th and 7th have DMI 3.0 that connects the chipset. I've been looking at most of them and I've never seen anything mentioned about less than full support.

Supports 7th/ 6th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors

I'll have a Asus Strix Z270G tomorrow. I'm going to use my i5 6500 in it. This is what the Asus page says:

Intel® Socket 1151 for 7th/6th Generation Core™ i7/Core™ i5/Core™ i3/Pentium®/Celeron® Processors
Supports Intel® 14 nm CPU
Supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
* The Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 support depends on the CPU types.

No asterisk there about PCIe lanes (and turbo boost will still work.) There are no artificially imposed limitations.

 

[liiroy]

hope that is true, I might get a new board, but don't see any benefit in new cpu.

thanks!

 

[eclypse]

Notice both 6th and 7th have DMI 3.0 that connects the chipset. I've been looking at most of them and I've never seen anything mentioned about less than full support.


I'll have a Asus Strix Z270G tomorrow. I'm going to use my i5 6500 in it. This is what the Asus page says:

No asterisk there about PCIe lanes (and turbo boost will still work.) There are no artificially imposed limitations.

So that extra 4 pcie lanes can be used for dual m.2 drives along with sli?? The z170 wouldn't have enough enough for all.

 

[mICKEL]

On the Strix only the direct to CPU lanes are used for the video card slots, so it's one x16 or two x8. The other lanes are for the other slots and onboard devices.

 

[eclypse]

On the Strix only the direct to CPU lanes are used for the video card slots, so it's one x16 or two x8. The other lanes are for the other slots and onboard devices.

So no extra lanes available to the chipset then? As I was thinking..

 

[GotNoRice]

So no extra lanes available to the chipset then? As I was thinking..

You have two different kinds of PCI-E lanes. Some lanes come directly from the CPU, some come from the chipset. Only lanes from the CPU can be used for your primary graphics and for stuff like SLI. 6700K has only 16 PCI-E lanes from the CPU regardless of which chipset is used. The CPU has a DMI 3.0 link to the chipset. It is the chipset that controls how many chipset-based PCI-E lanes are available, not the CPU. It's all the same DMI 3.0 link from the CPU's perspective.

 

[mICKEL]

I don't understand what your saying. PCIe lanes are not just for video, and the CPU direct lanes must have lower latency. If all lanes were not supported something would not work. I don't have a diagram showing how many lanes go to what, but with the two PCIe 1x slots, two M.2 SATA /PCIE 3.0 4x, sound, NIC, USB 3.1, wifi and Bluetooth going to the chipset of the matx Strix Z270G there could be some lanes still free, IDK. But if all lanes were not supported with older processors some Z270 boards would have disclaimers saying that some ports or onboard devices will not work when useing one.

 

[mICKEL]

The Aorus Z270X-gaming 5 uses them all.